All posts by Eric Zweig

Best on (200 or 300th) Best: Part II

Hockey History

Well, you couldn’t have asked for a much better Final from the 4 Nations Face-Off last week. Especially from a Canadian perspective! Fast, and aggressive, but without any goon stuff. And the best player in the world scored the winning goal. But now, we’ll return to 1949 when things didn’t end up quite so well for Canada. Last week’s post ended with Canada’s 47–0 win over Denmark at the 1949 World Championship, and today, we continue with the rest of that tournament and the conclusion of the Sudbury Wolves/Canadian team’s three-plus month tour of Europe…

A day after that February 12 win over Denmark, Canada beat Austria 7–0 to win Group A and advance to the six-team Medal Round. (The Austrians would beat Denmark 25–1 on February 14 and also advanced). The USA (3–0–0) and Switerzland (2–1–0) advanced from four-team Group B, while the host Swedes (2–0–0) and Czechoslovakia (1–1–0) moved on from the three teams in Group C. But while Canada had outscored its opponents 54–0 in two games and the Americans won their three games by a combined 36–6, most experts still favoured the U.S. to win the tournament. Writing in the Owen Sound Sun Times on February 15, 1949, sports editor Bill Dane cautioned that the experts “possibly … are overlooking the best bet of all, Czechoslovakia,” though he undoubtedly wasn’t alone in touting the 1947 World Champions who had given the RCAF Flyers a run for their money at the 1948 Winter Olympics.

Canada faced Czechoslovakia to open the medal round on February 15 … and the game would prove typical of Canadian contests in Europe for years to come. Though the team had been told the CAHA rule book would be used at the World Championship, they had also been cautioned about the referees and told to be careful. But the Czech game got out of hand.

Image of Ray Bauer (SIHR) and action at the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm in 1943. The Stadium was built for the 1912 Olympics and used for the Ice Hockey World Championship in 1949 and 1954. Ray’s son E.J. Bauer says his father always maintained he’d scored eight goals in the 47–0 win over Denmark.

After a scoreless first period, a Canadian player was penalized for apparently trying to start a fight. The Czechs scored on the power-play. Ray Bauer tied the game for Canada midway through the second, but then two quick penalties were called. The first was to Johnny Kovich, who was accused to trying to kick a Czech player. Shortly thereafter, Tom Russell was sent to the box. With a two-man advantage, Augustin Bubnick scored by batting in the puck with his stick held over his head. When Joe Tergesen complained to the referee, he was issued a 10-minute penalty “for bad sportsmanship.” (According to Canadian Press reports, Vladimir Zabrodsky, who set up the goal, admitted after the period that he considered the goal invalid. Still, the IIHF denied Canada’s protest after the game.)

Canada was again a man short when the third period began, but after killing the penalty, Jim Russell tied the game 2–2. Midway through the period, Vladimir Zabrodsky set up Stanislav Konopasek and the Czechs were up 3–2. Fists flared towards the end of the game, and when Tom Russell dropped his stick to face two Czech players, he was not just sent to the penalty box but told to leave the stadium. The game ended 3–2. Afterward, the IIHF ruled Russell would be able to keep playing, but warned that any player involved in “further instances of fisticuffs or similar offences” would be banned from the tournament.

The Czech team at the 1947 World Championship. (Radio Prague International)

An angry Max Silverman considered withdrawing his team, but said authorities back in Canada advised him to carry on. Home in Canada after the tour, Silverman further explained that he had pulled is goalie with a minute to go to try and get the tying goal, “But I had no sooner got him to the bench and the bell rang. Bunny Ahearne of the British Ice Hockey Federation [a future enemy of Canadian hockey in Europe] told me the refs have just gypped you out of 50 seconds. I protested, but it went for nothing.”

The next day, Canada faced Sweden … and there was a riot before the game even started.

Initial reports claimed Swedish fans were trying to block the Canadian players from entering the stadium — Swedish press reports had billed the Canadians as “dangerous men” — but later stories said it was merely the pushing and shoving of an estimated crowd of 25,000 fans hoping to get in. There were reports of 14 injuries, although none were serious. Even so, mounted police had to force a passage through the crowd to allow ambulances to get through. A police escort led the Canadian team bus to the stadium, and a chain of 12 officers protected the players on their way from the dressing room to the ice.

Autographs of the Canadian team from a hotel registry in England or Scotland sent by “avid reader” Bob Murray after last week’s post. (Note Barbara Ann Scott as well.)

Once the game began, there was a parade of Canadian player to the penalty box. Some reports said there were seven Canadian penalties in the game to just one for the Swedes, but Max Silverman said it was 14 to one. Even so, Canada led 2–1 midway through the third period … until the Swedes tied the game with two Canadians in the penalty box. The final score would remain 2–2.

Silverman believed a Swedish fan had held the stick of defenseman Joe Tergesen on the tying goal. “It’s hard enough to play the teams without playing the spectators too,” he said. There would be no protest this time, but he had other criticisms to offer. “They try to apply Canadian rules,” he said, “but evidently [the IIHF] are still confused. Consequently, our men have no idea what they are allowed to do and why they are sent to the penalty box.” Rudolg Eklow, a Swedish IIHF member, responded, “We in Europe are trying to make hockey a little more human. [Humane, perhaps?] We do not like the North American tendency to brutalize the game.”

Next up for Canada on February 17 were the Americans, who had suffered a surprising 5–4 loss to Switzerland in their first game of the medal round. A Canadian win would keep their championship hopes alive while virtually eliminating the USA. Stockholm police delayed the start of the game by 45 minutes and used the time to clear away crowds outside the stadium. The 7,900 who got in saw Canada score a convincing 7–2 victory by blowing open a tight 3–2 game with four goals in the third period.

More autographs courtesy of Bob Murray.

An 8–2 win for Canada over Austria followed. The U.S. bounced back for a 6–3 win over Sweden, a 2–0 win over the Czechs, and a 9–1 win over Austria, but it wasn’t enough for them. Canada’s 1–1 tie with Switzerland to end the tournament meant nothing for them either, as the Czechs had already claimed the World Championship with their 3–0 win over Sweden earlier that same day. Czechoslovakia finished the medal round with a record of 4–1–0. Canada was 2–1–2 and the Americans were 3–2–0. The Canadians got second place because of a +10 goal differential (20 goals for to 10 against) in the medal round. (The 47–0 and 7–0 wins in the preliminary round didn’t count.) The Americans were only +7 (23–16) and finished third.

Not surprisingly, hockey fans back home weren’t thrilled with Canada’s second-place finish. Nor were they pleased with the reports of the European reaction to their style of play. But over there in Europe, the Wolves/Canada still had two months of tour to go.

At 6am on the morning after the World Championship ended, the team headed for Czechoslovakia. There, they played eight games in nine days in front of 125,000 fans and went 5–2–1. Dinty Moore was pleasantly surprised with his view behind the Iron Curtain.

A souvenir of Stockholm from 1949 provided after last week’s story by E.J. Bauer, son of Ray Bauer. E.J. says his father (who passed away in 2001) always had it on display.

“The players were treated better than at Stockholm … where they were put up in third-rate hotels. We had a plane put out our disposal with a crew of three Czechs who had flown with the RAF during the war and spoke English. They took us wherever we wanted to got and we stayed at the best hotels. The food was excellent and plentiful. The crowds were eminently fair.”

The hockey tour continued until early April before the team finally returned to Canada, at Montreal, aboard the Canadian Pacific Liner Empress of France, on April 20. Safely on home soil, Max Silverman unloaded. “It was terrible,” he said. “They accused us of everything under the sun. They said we were too rough on their boys. That was pure nonsense. We took over a lot of fellows who could do everything but play a rugged game.”

Silverman was convinced that if Canada sent teams to Europe in the future, they should send over a whole team in tact. And top teams too. “The countries we played thought they were meeting the tops in Canada. I said nuts to that; we have 200 or 300 hockey teams back home that could show this crowd something.”

Two bronze medals provided by E.J. Bauer. The first would appear to be from a game between Canada/Sudbury and Västerås IK, a Swedish club team, prior to the World Championship. The second is some sort of World Championship commemorative.

All in all, it seems the Sudbury Wolves/Canadian hockey team played 62 games in their approximately 100 days abroad. They posted a record of 29–19–14, but it had been gruelling. Herb Kewley was among a group of five players who arrived in Toronto by train on April 21, 1949. “That tour was a killer,” he said. “We played far too many games. Val Zabrodsky, Czech star center was the best man we played against. They’re all god skaters, but … they can’t stand being bumped.”

Said Ray Bauer: “We travelled too far and played too many games in too short a period. One day we had breakfast in Sweden, lunch in Denmark and supper in Czechoslovakia, and after supper we had to fly another 400 miles to the scene of the game which started at 10:10 pm…. Sometimes we’d play twice in 20 hours. Seldom were we away from the ice for more than 36 hours.”

Back home in Waterloo a few days later, Bauer said he thought the criticism the team had received in Canada was “unjust and unwarranted,” adding: “If think Canadians would have praised us instead of insulting us if they knew the heavy schedule of games we had to play and the conditions under which we played them.” But all in all, “it was a trip that I thoroughly enjoyed and I’m extremely grateful to the CAHA for making it possible.”

Best on (200 or 300th) Best: Part I

Hockey History

Haven’t posted anything since before Christmas. I don’t usually like to let so much time go by, but I’ve been pretty busy with other things. I hadn’t really been enamoured with the thought of it before it started (though I was pretty sure I’d watch!), but once the 4 Nations Face-Off actually faced-off, I figured I’d find some sort of historic angle to this prefab — though pretty fabulous — tournament. There’s no real connection between that and this story, but here we go…

If it’s remember for anything today, the 1949 Ice Hockey World Championship is remembered for the fact that Canada beat Denmark 47–0 in what will likely always be the highest scoring game at this level of international hockey. Yet Canada didn’t win that year. Canadian teams had finished second before — to the United States at the 1933 World Championship and to a Great Britain team loaded with expat Canadians at the 1936 Winter Olympics — but the 1949 tournament marked the first time Canada finished second to a true European team as Czechoslovakia came out on top.

Canada hadn’t sent a team to first post-War World Championship in 1947 because of a growing rift between the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). We might not have sent a team to the 1948 Winter Olympics if it hadn’t been for the hastily assembled RCAF Flyers. Once again, the CAHA seemed less than committed to sending a team to the 1949 World Championship, but did vote in favour of doing so on Saturday, April 24, 1948, at their annual meeting in Toronto. The team would tour Europe from December 30, 1948, until early April of 1949 and represent Canada at the World Championship in Stockholm, Sweden, in February.

The 1949 Canadian team at practice in Sudbury. Top row, L-R: Al Rebellato, Bud Hashey, Joe DeBastiani, Herb Kewley, Barney Hillson, Bill Dimock, John Kovich, Don Munro, Emile Gagne. Front row, L-R: Bob Mills, Joe Tergesen, Jim Russell, Max Silverman (GM/coach), Jim McKenzie (trainer), Doug Free, Ray Bauer, Al Picard.
Courtesy of Ernie Fitzsimmins, Society for International Hockey Research.

Max Silverman had long been involved in the management of hockey teams in Sudbury, Ontario, and was currently the president of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association. He and Frank “Dinty” Moore of Port Colborne, a past president of the OHA (and a member of the 1936 Canadian Olympic hockey team), were tasked with selecting Canada’s team this time. The CAHA made the job more difficult with an announcement on May 10, 1948, after stories that Max Silverman had approached the 1948 Memorial Cup champion Port Arthur Bruins, when president Al Pickard announced it would not be feasible to send a complete team because of the interruption to league schedules. In June, former NHL player (and future childhood coach of Bobby Orr) Bucko McDonald offered up the Sundridge Beavers, who had won the OHA Intermediate B championship, but in July, Silverman ruled out the possibility of taking one team in tact … possibly because of the earlier CAHA ruling.

Silverman spent much of the summer of 1948 trying to assemble a team. Near the end of October, he announced the squad would come together in Sudbury at the end of November to begin training. But in early December, he was still putting the finishing touches on his roster. Britt Jessup of the North Bay Daily Nugget, who had written back in July about the problems Silverman would face, reminded his reader of them in his Sport Static column on December 2:

“If the truth be known, Max Silverman is not having any picnic gathering players for his tour-Europe hockey team. The inducement to go on this hockey junket — $25 a week and all expenses paid — is not exactly alluring. Free-spending hockey players would go through that 25 fish in a couple of days. As for the education which travel provides, many pucksters saw enough of Europe for a while during the years 1939–1945. Married players simply can’t pick up and leave their families to go on this European jaunt. On return, they’d likely find their wives had gone on a little jaunt themselves … to Reno.”

Silverman, wrote Jessup, was spending a lot of his personal time and money trying to find players and was becoming “a bit cheesed” with the lack of co-operation he was getting from the CAHA. That’s why (even though it really wasn’t) he decided to call his team the Sudbury Wolves. “Hell,” said Silverman (Jessup quoted him as saying H––l), “I’m doing most of the work and Sudbury men are proving most of the sponsorship! We may as well get some publicity out of it.”

1949 World Championship poster and images of Jim Russell and Tommy Russell.
(Player images courtesy of Society for International Hockey Research.)

Jessup wondered if it might not have been a good idea to take Bucko McDonald’s Sundridge team to Europe after all. “They [the CAHA] wouldn’t let me sign players to contracts [in] September,” Silverman complained. “Now I’m faced with the job of doing around trying to get players, when most of them have already signed with teams for the 1948–49 season. I don’t like breaking up other teams to get players for my team, but what can I do? We can’t go over there with a team not fit to represent Canada, the home of hockey.”

The players Silverman had gathered met in Sudbury for a week of practice starting about December 5. Those paying attention weren’t very impressed, as this assessment in The Sault Star of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, from December 4 will attest: “I fail to see where the club will be much stronger than an average intermediate team at the most. Not a single, solitary big name either from Northern or Southern Ontario senior ranks is included. In fact, a number of boys trying out for the squad are just junior B calibre, if that.”

The team was certainly young, with most under 21 and some still teenagers. Among the few veterans was Ray Bauer of Waterloo, Ontario, who was no superstar but at least had a family pedigree in being the brother of NHL star Bobby Bauer and future Canadian National Team leader Father David Bauer.

These new Sudbury Wolves played their first game on December 12 against the Sudbury Miners of the Nickel Belt Hockey League and held them to a 2–2 tie. “Sporting a few weak links, but sound basically,” read a Canadian Press report, “the Wolves can expect to show improvement after two or three more games.” Four nights later, the Wolves pulled their goalie to earn a late goal and another 2–2 tie against the North Bay Black Hawks.

Next, the players made quick trips home to say goodbye to their families. Then the team travelled to Boston, where they were beaten handily on December 20 in a 6–3 loss to the American team they would face at the World Championship. Three days later, they sailed for Southampton from New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth (named for the wife of King George VI). Keeping themselves in shape in the ship’s gymnasium and swimming pool, the team arrived in England on December 29 only to have customs officials seize much of their equipment, including 500 hockey sticks.

Boston Sunday Globe, February 13, 1949.

The Brits were worried that sports equipment brought over by teams in previous years had been sold before the teams left England, thus evading imports duties. “We have allowed too much rope in the past,” said one customs official. “Now we are going to clamp down.” The team was forced to spend most of the day in Southampton and a deposit had to be paid on their gear before they were allowed to leave for London late that night. “We were very annoyed,” Max Silverman said, “especially as we have brought with us a lot of sweets and foodstuffs for the British public.”

The Sudbury Wolves/Canada played the first game of their tour the following night and lost 7–3 to England. (I assume that’s the English national team, though they wouldn’t be at the 1949 World Championship.) By January 28, 1949, they had played 14 games in England, Scotland and France and were just 3–6–5. Before the end of the month, they put up two lopsided wins (12–0 and 14–3) against teams in the Netherlands, but as early as January 17, the CAHA had voted to send reinforcements. On February 1, Don Stanley of Edmonton (son of Hockey Hall of Famer Barney Stanley and a cousin of Allan Stanley) and Tommy Russell (who was playing in Cape Breton) flew out to meet the Canadian team in Sweden.

After a few wins and loses to Swedish teams, the Sudbury Wolves/Canada opened the 1949 World Championship in Stockholm on February 12 with their famous 47–0 win over Denmark. (Denmark had joined the IIHF in 1946, and this was their first international appearance, though they game wouldn’t really begin to grow there until the next season. Denmark beat Canada for the first time in international hockey with a 3–2 win at the World Championship on May 23, 2022.) Jim Russell (the team’s oldest player at 30 and a member of the Sudbury Wolves who had won the 1938 World Championship) led the assault with eight goals. Tommy Russell had six, while Don Stanley, Joe DiBastiani and Don Munro each had five. Ray Bauer, Guy Hashey, Joe Tergesen, Emile Gagne, Barney Hilson and Bill Dimock all scored three.

Canadian Press reports note “The spectators often laughed heartily at the desperate Danish efforts,” and“The chief thrill of the crowd was betting on whether Canada would top 50 goals or not.” A United Press report in American papers (which claimed there were only 100 fans at the game) said the only disappointed Canadian player was goalie Al Picard. “He felt he ought to get in on the scoring fiesta, and at the height of the game he wandered out of his cage in hopes up picking up a goal, but was waved back to his position by Team Manager Max Silverman.”

So, there was at least some sportsmanship!

Part II (and the reason for the title!) next week.

Happy (Hockey / History) Holidays for 2024

Hockey History, Personal

The NHL used to play games on Christmas Day until the 1972–73 season. Over the years, from the first Christmas game on December 25, 1919, through the last games in 1971, there were a total of 125 games played on Christmas Day. I wrote about that 1919 game 10 years ago, but I didn’t realize until recently that NHL records showed the game to have been played on December 24. Stuart McComish, Senior Manager, Statistics and Research, for the NHL and I went over this last month.

Though it does appear the original newspaper stories about the 1919–20 schedule showed the first two games being played on December 24, 1919, the actual schedule had Toronto at Ottawa on December 23 and Montreal at Quebec on December 25. (The Canadiens won, 12–5). If you go looking for stories (other than mine!) about the first NHL game on Christmas Day, you’re likely to find the Toronto St. Patricks at the Montreal Canadiens on December 25, 1920 (Toronto 5, Montreal 4) … but the NHL has now updated their records. Here’s an ad for that 1919 Christmas game from The Quebec Chronicle, on Wednesday, December 24:

There were six NHL games on Christmas Day in 1971. The final game that night — the last NHL game ever played on Christmas — was a West Coast affair with the Los Angeles Kings hosting the California Golden Seals. The Seals won 3–1.

Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1971.

An earlier game that night in Toronto — Maple Leafs 5, Red Wings 3 — holds some significance in my family since it was the first game my brother David (a Christmas baby!) ever attended, with our father on his sixth birthday. (There’s no actual date in this image from The Toronto Star, so you’ll have to trust me that it’s from December 24, 1971.) I remember watching the Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in the longest overtime playoff game in NFL history earlier that evening, and then switching to the Leafs game on Hockey Night in Canada. I was looking for David and my Dad in the stands, but I never saw them…

And, well, because I’m Jewish, we’ll conclude with this. It’s not easy to find stories combining hockey and Hanukkah, so this, from The Toronto Star on December 20, 1973, is the best I could do!

No matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you have a happy one. And all the best to everybody for a happy and healthy — and peaceful — new year in 2025.

The Father Leveque Story

Hockey History, Personal

Hi Everyone. It’s been about a month since I posted a story. I don’t usually like to let longer than that go by, so here’s something new today. To be honest, it’s not much more than some self-promotion (with a good word for a few friends too). But, hey, whaddya want for nothing?!?

I have two new books out as we head into the holiday season. Amazing Hockey Trivia for Kids is the sixth in a series for Scholastic Canada. If you’ve got a child on your shopping list, ages 8 to 12 or so (older people say they like them too), these books have been very popular. Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories 2 is a sequel to Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories. (I wanted to call it True Stories Too). I had a lot of success with the first book in 2022, and I have high hopes — if somewhat nervously! — for this one.

I’ve also received or purchased a handful of other new hockey books for 2024. There’s Ian Kennedy’s Ice In Their Veins, which is a history of women’s hockey. (Ian covers women’s hockey for The Hockey News.) I haven’t read it yet, but the online reviews I’ve seen are excellent. There’s also Turk, a biography of Gerard Gallant. Admittedly, it’s not the type of hockey book I’d normally read, but a colleague who works for the publisher was gracious enough to send me a copy, so I’ll get to it.

Another book on my “get to it” list is Jack and the Box by Kevin Shea. Kevin’s books are always well-researched and well-written, and I know this story was very personal to him. I’m sure it will be excellent.

One new book I have read is Ronnie Shuker’s The Country and the Game. Highly recommended! Though there’s plenty of hockey in it, it’s not your typical hockey book. It’s a travelogue of his hockey adventures across Canada from coast to coast to coast and is filled with fascinating stories and interesting people. Ronnie is an author, editor, freelance writer, and an editor at large for The Hockey News. He did copy editing on both Hall of Fame True Stories books … but that’s not the reason I’m saying he’s an excellent writer!

As for Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories 2, it once again indulges my personal interest in stories from hockey’s past … and hopefully tells them more truthfully and accurately than they’ve usually been told before. There’s a chapter on the NHL trophies; on the early days of the Stanley Cup; on the rules that helped make modern hockey; on early international hockey; on the first hockey broadcasts on radio and television; and a final chapter about strange injuries and other oddities. Regular readers of these posts on my web site will recognize some of the stories, but there’ll be plenty that’s new.

Art Ross III never had any idea who this person was seated next to his grandfather. He suspected it was someone hired to portray one of the characters he had created for his many stories about life in smalltown Quebec.

I’ve often said — in these posts, and elsewhere — that I enjoy the research I do more than the writing. It’s always fascinating to me when trying to find one thing leads to something completely different. In this case, I was trying to track down the history behind the rule change in 1943–44 that introduced the center ice red line to hockey. I found plenty about that, but I also found this odd little tale that I had not seen years ago when research and writing Art Ross: The Hockey Legend Who Built the Bruins.

To be honest, this story doesn’t really fit any of the categories covered by the six chapters. I was also a little worried some people might find it politically incorrect. But, it made me laugh and so it found its way in. It’s actually the last story in the book, in the Injuries and Oddities chapter. It’s sort of an injury story … but it’s mostly an oddity.

The story appeared in Dink Carroll’s column in the Montreal Gazette on May 11, 1943. He was writing about a recent informal meeting of the NHL Governors, and noted that while sitting around in a suite in Montreal’s Windsor Hotel, Art Ross had been prevailed upon to tell “what has become known as ‘the Father Leveque story.’” He told it, wrote Carroll, “with obvious relish.”

Dink Carroll’s column from May 11, 1943 and the NHL Governors for 1943–44.

In setting the scene, Carroll notes the story dates back to the fall of of 1936, when Ross’s Boston Bruins played Tommy Gorman’s Montreal Maroons in a six-game exhibition tour of the Maritime Provinces prior to the 1936–37 NHL season. By the time they reached Saint John, New Brunswick, interest had built to the point where tickets were scarce. Both Art Ross and Tommy Gorman were being inundated with requests for seats.

On the afternoon of the game, Ross called up Gorman and said it was Father Leveque speaking. Art can talk Habitant dialect with the best of them and Gorman went for it, particularly as “Father Leveque” kept telling him that he had admired the great job Tommy had done as a newspaper man and then as a hockey manager. Tommy said yes, he remembered “Father Leveque” very well.

“Father Leveque” then said he was the principal of a boys school, and the boys were poor and he would like a few passes for the game. Could he possibly get them? Tommy said he thought he could handle it all right. “Just a few passes,” said Father Leveque. “There are 59 boys at the school and they all want to go to the game. Can I maybe have 59 passes?”

Tommy demurred . . . but “Father Leveque” again recollected the great job Tommy had done on the newspaper, and his glorious record in hockey. Tommy finally capitulated, saying he would pay for some of the seats himself.

“One more thing,” said “Father Leveque. “Are you sure the boys will be able to see from the seats?”

“Of course they will,” Tommy answered a little testily. “These will be the best seats in the house. They’ll be able to see fine.”

“That will be a miracle then,” said Father Leveque. “Because these boys are all blind.”

The Classic Fall Classic

Baseball History

The World Series starts tonight. It’s the most classic of Fall Classic match-ups, with the Yankees against the Dodgers. This will mark the 12th time the two teams have met for all the marbles. I’m sure baseball is thrilled to have the two biggest markets going head-to-head with some of the biggest stars in the game on the biggest stage, led by probable League MVPs Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the Yankees.

Now, there’s pretty much no team in sports I’ve ever disliked as much as the New York Yankees. As long-ago comedian Joe. E Lewis once said, “Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.” My mother – really, the reason our family is baseball crazy — grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the Los Angeles Dodgers have never been the lovable “Bums” of their Brooklyn days. Rooting for them is like rooting for Amazon. So, I don’t think I’ll know who I want to win until I’m watching and I see how I feel as the Series progresses.

Below is a history of the 11 previous Yankees-Dodgers World Series in newspaper pages. I’ve “borrowed” from the The New York Times, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Brooklyn Caravan, the Brooklyn Daily, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. (New York stories are on the left; Brooklyn/Los Angeles stories on the right.)

The Yankees beat Brooklyn 4 games to 1 in the 1941 World Series. The turning point in the Series came when Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen dropped the third strike that would have ended Game 4 with a Brooklyn victory but instead allowed the Yankees to rally for a victory.

The Dodgers integrated baseball in 1947 with Jackie Robinson on their roster. The World Series featured a near no-hitter by the Yankees’ Bill Bevens in what turned out to be a losing effort in Game 4 and an Al Gionfriddo catch that robbed Joe DiMaggio of extra bases in Game 6. Still, the Yankees beat the Dodgers in 7 games. (Note WAIT ‘TILL NEXT YEAR! in the Brooklyn Eagle.)

Both teams were 97–57 in 1949, but the Yankees won the World Series in 5 games. It would be the first of record five straight Yankees championships.

The Yankees won the 1952 World Series in seven games, with second baseman and future manager Billy Martin making a game-saving catch to preserve a 4–2 victory in Game 7.

Five in a row, and two straight over Brooklyn, for the Yankees in 1953. Billy Martin was the hero again, hitting .500 with a record-tying 12 hits and a walk-off RBI single in the Game 6 finale.

Next Year finally arrived in Brooklyn in 1955 after seven straight World Series losses and four in a row to the Yankees. Dodgers Pitcher Johnny Podres was just 9–10 on the season, but threw a complete game victory on his 23rd birthday in Game 3 and a 2–0 shutout in Game 7 to win the first World Series MVP Award.

The Yankees were back on top in 1956 with a blowout 9–0 victory in Game 7. The 1956 World Series is best remembered for Don Laren’s perfect game for the Yankees in Game 5. After the 1957 season, the Dodgers would move to Los Angeles (and the Giants to San Francisco) for 1958.

For the first time in team history, the Yankees were swept in the World Series. They never even had a lead! Dodgers pitchers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, and ace reliever Ron Perranoski combined to give up only four runs in four games. Koufax threw complete games in Games 1 and 4 to win World Series MVP.

The Yankees hadn’t won the World Series since 1962 (they’d lost in 1963, 1964, and 1976) when they returned to their winning ways in 1977. A six-game victory of the Dodgers was punctuated by three home runs on three consecutive swings by World Series MVP Reggie Jackson in an 8–4 victory in Game 6.

After losing the first two games in Los Angeles, the Yankees won three straight back in New York and then wrapped up the series back at Dodgers Stadium with a 7–2 win in Game 6. Bucky Dent, who homered in a tie-breaker game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park at the end of the 1978 regular season, hit .417 in the World Series with seven RBIs to win MVP.

After a strike-torn “split” season in 1981, the Dodgers beat the Yankees to win the World Series. In a reverse of 1978, the Dodgers dropped the first two games in New York, returned home to win three in a row, then won Game 6 at Yankee Stadium. Ron Cey, Pedro Guerrero, and Steve Yeager of the Dodgers shared the MVP award.

A key member of the Dodgers’ 1981 World Champions was pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who passed on Tuesday. He had recently taken a leave of absence from the Dodgers’ Spanish-language broadcasts, but while he had been sick for quite a while with liver cancer, he told almost no one about his illness in order to preserve his privacy.

Though he’d appeared as a reliever in 10 games in 1980 (with two wins and a save), Valenzuela truly burst onto the scene as a starter in 1981. A late replacement for Jerry Reuss on Opening Day, Valenzuela pitched a complete game five-hit shutout in a 2–0 win over the Houston Astros. It was the start of an amazing run that launched “Fernando-mania.”

In his first eight stars of 1981, Valenzuela threw eight straight complete games and won them all, allowing just four runs while throwing five shutouts. A lefty with a unique delivery and a devastating screwball, he is still the only pitcher to win the Cy Young Award and the Rookie of the Year in the same season.

A nagging shoulder injury would slow him down after a career-high 21 wins in 1986, but Valenzuela remained with the Dodgers through the 1990 season. He later pitched for the Angels, Orioles, Phillies, Padres, and Cardinals before retiring in 1997. His career record was 173–153 with an ERA of 3.54 and a no-hitter he pitched in 1990.

The Dodgers retired Valenzuela’s #34 in the summer of 2023. He will be honoured during this year’s World Series, and the Dodgers will wear a commemorative patch during the Series and throughout next season.

Charlie Hustle…

Baseball History, News

I don’t really have anything fresh or new to say about Pete Rose. Still, when the all-time Major League hit leader dies — as Pete Rose did on Monday — how can someone who calls himself a sportswriter not write something? And, as a reminder, though writing about hockey has been my profession for years, I’ve long been — and continue to be — a much bigger baseball fan.

I first started paying any attention to baseball in 1972. Playoff games. In the afternoon. Oakland against Detroit in the American League Championship Series. Cincinnati against Pittsburgh in the National League. Then, the A’s and Reds for the World Series. Oakland won, and really, most of my memories are of them. But Rose was there, as he would be through the years of my early baseball life, which went from casual fan to rabid follower once the Blue Jays got started in 1977.

Until the Blue Jays, I’d mostly watched baseball only at World Series time. So the 1975 and 1976 wins by Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” put Rose (and Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez, and Dave Conception, and George Foster, and Ken Griffey, and Sparky Anderson) firmly into my baseball mind. During the summer of 1978, on a family trip to Israel, my brothers and I followed baseball — a day or two after the fact, as I recall — in the pages of the International Herald Tribune. Pete Rose’s hit streak, which ran to 44 games (still the longest since Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-gamer in 1941), and which we followed in those pages, further solidified Rose for me as an historic baseball figure.

And, of course, Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle. Even now, when everyone slides into bases head first, the way Rose dove into bases still looks unique. And threatening. Never the most gifted athlete, Rose willed himself to greatness with a drive that has rarely been matched. But fans (especially young fans like me) knew little about the dark side of that drive. His womanizing … and his compulsion to gamble.

Which would lead to his lifetime ban from baseball in 1989.

Which would keep baseball’s all-time hit leader out of the Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose broke Tommy Holmes’ National League record when he ran his hit streak to 38 games. It’s close, but this isn’t the picture I remember from the International Herald Tribune that summer!

I’ve never been much of a gambler. And I get that pretty much the number one rule for athletes (although it’s actually rule 21 D in the baseball rule book) is don’t gamble on your own sport. Especially in a game in which you’re involved. For many good reasons! And yet, today, when gambling is everywhere in the way we consume sports, it seems almost hypocritical to keep Rose out of baseball.

But he did break the rule.

Though a 35-year sentence seems an awfully long time.

People get less for murder!

This, from the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News on March 31, 1963, was the earliest reference I found to Pete Rose has Charlie Hustle … although the story would claim his Reds teammates had given him the nickname.

Back in 2015, Pete Rose had been hopeful, when Rob Manfred became baseball’s new commissioner, that he might be re-instated. Rose was allowed to take part in a handful of Major League events, but he was never fully welcomed back.

And now, he’s dead at 83 years old.

So, does a lifetime ban end with the end of a lifetime?

Shoeless Joe Jackson, banned for life for his part in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series, has yet to be reinstated. Seven other teammates were banished with Jackson, but he was the only one likely to have wound up in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I heard it said on Monday night that Pete Rose had no interest in being inducted posthumously, basically saying, ‘My family might appreciated it, but what do I care after I’m dead?’

This story, from the Tampa Tribune on August 18, 1963, gives a truer version of the Charlie Hustle story. Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford gave Rose the nickname sarcastically when he ran to first base after drawing a walk.

Even so, will Rose be reinstated?

Will he finally make it to the Hall of Fame?

Does a lifetime ban end with his lifetime?

(The wording in Rule 21 d 3 is actually “permanently ineligible.”)

I guess we’ll see.

But it seems sad that if it finally happens, it’ll happen without him.

Pete Rose Major League Records
• Most Career Hits 4,256
• Most Games Played 3,562
• Most At Bats 14,053
• Most Singles 3,315
• Most Total Bases Switch Hitter 5,752
• Most Season 200 or more hits 10 (tied with Ichiro Suzuki)
• Most Season 600 or more At Bats 17
• Most Season 150 or more games played 17
• Only Major League Player in History to Play 500 Games at 5 Positions

National League Records
• Most Doubles 746
• Longest Consecutive Game Hitting Steak (44 Games) 1978
• Batting Champ 1968, 1969, 1973

Wayne & Gordie & Walter

Hockey History

I’m not sure what inspired me to go looking for this the other day. Old issues of The Brantford Expositor have been available online for quite some time now. But whatever the reason, I came across this famous photo of Wayne Gretzky and his childhood hero Gordie Howe in what must be the first time it ever appeared. It’s on the front page of The Expositor from May 4, 1972.

The occasion was the Kiwanis Great Men of Sports Dinner in Gretzky’s hometown of Brantford, Ontario, which had been held the night before. The principal speaker had been Rudy Pilous, former coach of the Chicago Blackhawks (Black Hawks, in those days) who was currently being wooed by the Chicago Cougars of the WHA and would later become coach and GM of that league’s Winnipeg Jets.

In addition to Pilous and Gordie Howe, other guests that night included Toronto Argonauts quarterback Joe Theismann and Hamilton Tiger-Cats defensive lineman Angelo Mosca. There was also Tom Matte of the Baltimore Colts, former Major League pitcher Sal Maglie, Toronto Metros coach Graham Leggat, harness horseman John Hayes, and coach Morley Kells of the Brantford Warriors lacrosse team.

CFL Stars Angelo Mosca and Joe Theismann were also in Brantford that night.

The Expositor notes that 506 people attended the $25-a-plate dinner, which was the largest attendance in the nine-year history of the event, with all proceeds going to the Kiwanis Club of Brantford’s girls’ camp. “One of the biggest ovations,” the paper says, “was reserved for Wayne Gretzky, Brantford’s 11-year-old hockey star.” Gretzky was coming of a 1971-72 season that had seen him score 378 goals and 139 assists in an 85-game Atom season. (The paper notes that the “four foot, nine inch, 80 pound” Gretzky had scored a mere 372 goals.)

Interestingly, young Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe shared the same page in the Brantford newspaper again barely a month later, on June 8, 1972, the day after Howe, Jean Béliveau, and Bernie Geoffrion were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Gretzky had hit a home run and a double to help his Brantford tyke baseball team win its fifth straight game the night before.

Wayne Gretzky’s boyhood accomplishments were well noted in his local newspaper while growing up in Brantford. There are many, many, stories about his hockey, lacrosse, and baseball exploits in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. (And, to be honest, many more times when his name and Howe’s appeared in the paper on the same day.) Gretzky’s first mention in The Expositor would seem to be this one from December 28, 1967:

This was the first winter that Gretzky played hockey after being turned away as a five-year-old the year before. Now a six-year-old playing on a team of 10-year-olds, Gretzky is known to have scored only once that season, so this must be it! (The picture is from the Gretzky family collection and was used by us at Dan Diamond and Associates in our 1999 publication with Gretzky, 99: My Life in Pictures.)

Interestingly, it would seem that Wayne Gretzky’s father, Walter, also made his first appearance in The Brantford Expositor for his own sporting achievements when he was just six years old. Under a headline reading CHILDREN ENJOYED CLOWNS AND RACES AT PENMANS PICNIC Walter Gretzky’s name appears as the winner of a boys 25-yard race:

Though the race is said to be for “boys under six” Walter’s birth date of October 8, 1938, means that he was already six years old by then!

Hmmm……

Olympic Thoughts on Jews in Sports

Sports History

I’ve never really been one of those Jewish sports fans who cares a whole lot if a player is Jewish. But I do love trying hunt down the facts. So, when my brother texted “Way to go Jewish (I suppose) hammer thrower!” and I texted back, “Hadn’t thought of that” I quickly got on the case.

Ethan Katzberg certainly sounds like a Jewish name – and Katzberg himself looks like he could be Jewish – but it was hard to find anything to prove if he was. His father, who had first taught Ethan’s sister, and then Ethan, to throw the hammer at the Nanaimo Track and Field Club, is named Bernie. That sounds pretty Jewish too! His mother – Coralee – not so much.

Evan Katzberg and Summer McIntosh were
Canada’s flag bearers at the Closing Ceremonies.

I soon came across a Nanaimo News Bulletin story from 2013 about Mike Gogo’s Christmas Tree farm, which had been in his family for 84 years. Included is a picture of the Katzberg family, who had just picked out their tree! It was, apparently, their first time tree hunting … in Nanaimo, at least.

“A light came down from the sky and illuminated it from above,” joked Bernie. “And the kids helped pick it out too,” Coralee added, also stating that the family loves authentic trees. “The real ones are better,” Coralee said. “They smell good.”

Plenty of mixed marriage Jewish families out there who celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. Was this a case of that? “My guess,” I texted my brothers and nephew “is his Dad is Jewish and his Mom is not.”

The Katzberg family picks out their Christmas tree in 2013. (Nanaimo News Bulletin.)

Clearly, we weren’t the only people wondering, as other queries started showing up online. There was a particularly long thread on Reddit … which would seem to show that Katzberg is NOT Jewish. As one comment noted:

Ethan and I went to the same high school (years apart). I was so proud of him today! The Jewish community is pretty small in Nanaimo and I haven’t seen his name mentioned anywhere, so I don’t think he’s Jewish.

Still, maybe a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother? Plenty of other commenters thought that was possibile … but it doesn’t appear so according to these two comments from somebody else:

No he is not Jewish. I went to school with his father at a German Baptist college in Alberta.

Bernie’s family (of origin) attended Baptist church, so not Jewish. His ethnicity is German and he speaks (some) German. I went to school with him during our late teens.

But fear not, Jewish sports fans, there’s plenty more Jewish sports content in the rest of what I’m going to write. Admittedly (though I’m not much of a basketball fan) I was intending to write this in celebration of Canada’s first basketball medal since 1936. That drought continues, but still…

From the pages of The Jewish Standard in 1931. (Courtesy Michael Hayman.)

The common Jewish stereotype is that Jews are sports fans, but more likely to be team owners than athletes. But back in a time when Jews mostly lived in the inner city, sports were seen as a way to assimilate. Even a way to a better life. Back in the day, there were Jewish track stars, Jewish boxers, and Jewish basketball players too.

The 1936 Olympics had been awarded to Berlin in 1931, a few years before Adolph Hitler came to power. As the time drew closer, there were those who were pushing for the International Olympic Committee to move the Games somewhere else. Apparently, the most the IOC was willing to do was to push the Germans to include one token Jewish athlete on their Olympic team. Many Jewish athletes from around the world refused to go to Berlin and planned to attend The People’s Olympiad in Barcelona instead, but this leftist-inspired competition was called off shortly before it was to start due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

Note the thoughts on Jews and basketball! From the pages of
The Jewish Standard in 1931. (Courtesy Michael Hayman.)

Still, a handful of Jewish athletes did attend the Berlin Olympics … including two members of Canada’s basketball team which won a silver medal at the first Games where basketball was a full medal sport.

It’s often said that Canada was represented in basketball at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by the Windsor Ford V8 team. That’s only mostly true. The Ford V8s were the 1935-36 Canadian Senior Basketball Champions, but for the Olympics they picked up four members of the runner-up Victoria Blue Ribbons. (Windsor, Ontario – said to be because of its proximity to the United States – and Victoria, British Columbia, were the hotbeds of Canadian basketball at this time.) The Windsor team included two Jewish players: Irving “Toots” Meretsky and Julius “Goldie” Goldman.

The 1936 Canadian Olympic basketball team.

Though he had moved to Canada when he was two years old, Goldman had been born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to Lithuanian immigrant parents. Being American-born, he wasn’t allowed to play for Canada, so instead served as an assistant coach and the team’s representative on the 1936 Olympic Basketball Rules Committee. It was in that capacity that Goldman would modernize the game by suggesting the jump ball to restart play after every basket be eliminated … although this rule change would not be implemented until after the Berlin Olympics.

Irving Meretsky was born in Windsor in 1912 and lived his whole life there. When he died in 2006 at the age of 94, he was the last surviving member of the 1936 Olympic basketball team. A 2015 story by Tony Atherton of Postmedia News on the web site of Canada Basketball tells an anecdote Meretsky must have told many times in his life about seeing Adolph Hitler at the Opening Ceremonies:

Close up on Irving “Toots” Meretsky.

Down on the field, among the ranks of athletes from 52 nations, a skinny 24-year-old in a red blazer and white ducks, a Maple Leaf upon his breast, couldn’t keep an impish smile from spreading across his face. “He looks like Charlie Chaplin!” Toots Meretsky told himself. And no doubt felt better for it.

Toots was a Jewish kid from Windsor, Ont., standing in the heart of Nazi Germany, staring up at Hitler – on Shabbat, no less. He had passed ranks of crimson, swastika-emblazoned banners on his way into the arena. Now, he was hemmed in by an honour battalion of the German army. Everywhere he looked there were brownshirts, blackshirts, and blond, ecstatic Hitler Youth. He knew of the systematic oppression of German Jews since the Nazis had come to power three years before. He knew about the boycotting of Jewish businesses, the revocation of citizenship, the edicts against intermarriage, not to mention the random vandalism, beatings, and intimidation.

But Adolf Hitler looked like Charlie Chaplin. So Toots had to smile.

Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. (Courtesy of Michael Hayman.)

Basketball was almost an afterthought at the Berlin Olympics. The Germans didn’t think fans would care to watch, so the games were played on a modified outdoor clay tennis court. Mainly because of the jump ball rule, the lack of a 24-second clock (which wouldn’t come to be until the 1950s) and the fact that goaltending wasn’t against the rules, basketball was much more lowing scoring in this era. En route to the gold medal game against the United States, Canada posted the following victories:

24–17 over Brazil

34–23 over Latvia

27–9 over Switzerland

41–21 over Uruguay

42–15 over Poland

James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was a guest of the Americans in Berlin
in 1936, but was happy to pose with the team from his home and native land.

The U.S. got a bye in the first round when Spain withdrew, and then won:

52–28 over Estonia

(Bye through the third round)

56–23 over Philippines

25–10 over Mexico



Rain would mar the championship game on August 14, 1936.

Years later, [Canadian] team member Gord Aitchison would describe the scene to the Windsor Star. “On the opening play, an American player raced down the court, caught a pass as his feet went from under him and completed the last 15 or 20 feet to the basket sliding on the seat of his shorts, water spraying out from both sides.” The rest of the game followed suit.

Sam Balter, a U.S. point guard (and the only Jewish-American medal winner in 1936) regretted the circumstances of that game for the rest of his life, he told Sports Illustrated. “A comedy of errors and unfortunate circumstances had combined to make a sandlot affair of what should have been the greatest basketball tournament ever,” he said.

Game action from the 1936 Final.

The jump ball rule meant the height advantage of the American team would have been big at any rate, but on a soggy court where dribbling was impossible and even passing the ball was difficult, it proved a huge advantage. The U.S. led 15–4 at halftime, and while the Canadians played them even in the second half the final score was 19–8.


Unfortunately, the Olympic Committee had only minted seven medals of each color for the basketball competition. The Canadians drew lots to determine which of their players would receive a silver medal. Toots Meretsky didn’t win … however, after a media stir about the oversight, the IOC minted a new silver medal for Toots in 1999 from the original mold.

“Our group of guys were the greatest in the world,” Toots told a sports website sometime before his death in 2006 broke the last direct link with Canada’s only Olympic medal winning basketball team. “We all helped one another, we worked together, we played together.”

An Olympic Century

Sports History

I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to learn I’m watching plenty of Olympics. Not a ton, but still plenty. Watching sports I don’t usually watch, like fencing, where Eleanor Harvey won a bronze medal for Canada in Women’s Individual Foil…

And Women’s Rugby Sevens, where Canadian women earned a silver. Canada had a chance, but I think the better team – New Zealand – won. The game was exciting, but it’s always a bit strange to “lose” the silver medal…

Part of the enjoyment of these Olympics for me is that Lynn and I were in Paris in May (my first time), and it’s been fun to see some of the sites we just recently saw.

But, so far, Olympic-wise, I think I’ve had even more fun watching the film of the 1924 Paris Summer Games, which was reconstructed from French and British archives. (It was one of several official Olympic films that aired on Turner Classic Movies the night the 2024 Paris Olympics opened.) The film is, of course, black and white. It’s silent too, with title cards. Running time is nearly 3 hours, and while I admit I watched plenty of it on fast-forward, it’s pretty fascinating stuff! So, I hope you’ll enjoy the little still-image synposis that follows.

The opening shots set the scene with footage from the Opening Ceremony on July 5, 1924:

We then move inside for the parade of athletes. The first title card you’ll see mentions 45 nations, though most web sites seem to say there were only 44. Wikipedia lists 3,089 athletes, of which 2,954 were men and 135 were women. Female athletes competed only in swimming, diving, fencing, and tennis. They were not permitted to compete in track and field events until the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

France, as the host nation, had the biggest team in 1924 with 401 athletes. The Americans were next with 299.

I combined two images into one here to give a sort of panoramic look at the Olympic Stadium, which, by the way, is still in use in Paris and will host the field hockey tournament this year.

The tradition of the Olympic oath began at the Antwerp Games in 1920 and continued in Paris in 1924. The text, originally written by Pierre de Coubertin, has evolved. Since the 2000 Games in Sydney, it has included a sentence committing to sport without doping. These days, as well as on behalf of the athletes, the Olympic oath is taken on behalf of the officials and coaches. (Way to go, Canadian soccer officials!)

There were 126 events in 23 disciplines, comprising 17 sports, on the Olympic program in 1924. The full film shows most (but not all) of them. This little “slide” display will concentrate mostly on the famous athletes who took part, and mostly just in track and field, AKA Athletics:

Paavo Nurmi of Finland was the biggest star of 1924 Games. I probably first heard of him in the lead up to the Montreal Olympics in 1976, as I know our family bought a couple of books about those Games and the history of the Olympics that year. “The Flying Finn,” as he was known, ran with a stopwatch to help him control his pace. (You can see him checking his stopwatch in the third image.) A middle and long distance runner, Nurmi had already won three golds and a silver medal at the 1920 Olymics, and would add another gold and three more silvers in 1928. In Paris in 1924, he won gold in five different events: the 1,500 meters; 5,000 meters; Individual Cross Country, Team Cross Country, and Team 3,000 meters. That’s Nurmi approaching the finish line in the last image.

Track and field at the 1924 Olympics featured two British runners made famous (again) in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. One of them was Harold Abrahams, who won the 100 meters in an upset of 1920 Olympic champion Charley Paddock of the United States. Abrahams was an amateur athlete who controversially employed a professional coach. His father was a Jewish immigrant to England from Polish Lithuania, which was then part of the Russian Empire. Abrahams also won a silver medal in the 4 x 100 relay in 1924.

Eric Lidell was a devout Christian, born in China to Scottish missionary parents. He refused to compete in the 100 meters at the 1924 Olympics because the preliminary heats were held on a Sunday, and he did not run on the Sabbath. Lidell later won the 400 meters and earned a silver medal in the 200 (in which Abrahams finished sixth).

Perhaps the most famous athlete to compete at the 1924 Paris Olympics was American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Weissmuller won gold in the 100, 200 and 4×200 meter freestyle events, and earned a bronze medal with the U.S. water polo team. He’d win gold in the 100 meters and the 4 x 200 in Amsterdam in 1928, but is probably best known for playing Tarzan in 12 movies between 1932 and 1948 after his retirement from competitive swimming. There are no individual shots of Weissmuller in the 1924 Olympic film, but that’s him out in front in lane four in the third picture, and you can see his “wake” at the finish well in front of the swimmers in lanes one, two, and three in the fourth shot.

There’s tons more great footage in the film from most of the other sports. Notably for me was the high jump and pole vaulting, whose competitors look even more ancient in comparison to today’s athletes that do the sprinters. Diving too. Barely a twist or a tumble. It looks like a well-executed cannonball from the high tower could have won! There’s also soccer, rugby, fencing, yachting, rowing, canoeing and tennis. Perhaps I’ll add some of that later during the Olympics, but perhaps not. (Putting this together was way more labour-intensive than I’d imagined!) But, I’ll conclude today with this:

There were hardly any Black athletes to be seen in the 1924 Olympic footage. Hardly any athletes of any colour but white. William DeBart Hubbard is not someone I’d heard of previoulsy, but he became the first African-American to win a gold medal with his victory in the long jump in 1924.

Wikipedia reports that DeBart Hubbard qualified for the Olympics in the broad jump and the triple jump. It also references an NBC News story from earlier this month in which Hubbard’s nephew says he qualified for the 100 metres and the high hurdles too, but was not allowed to compete in those events because they were for whites only. Camille Paddeu, a curator at the Musee municipal d’Art et d’Histoire in Colombes, the Paris suburb where the main stadium was located, confirmed Hubbard was not permitted to compete in some events. You can read more about that here if you’d like.

Where Were You in ’42?

Hockey History

We might see history made tonight. Then again, in a way, we’ve already seen it. (That being said, you can count me as one who isn’t sure “the first time since…” really constitutes making history — even though it’s often expressed that way these days.)

When the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers on Friday night, it marked the first time since 1945 that a team who had lost the first three games in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final came back to force a seventh game. The Toronto Maple Leafs had taken a 3–0 lead only to see Detroit win the next three before Toronto salvaged the series in Game Seven.

And, of course, if the Oilers win tonight and complete the comeback, they’ll be the first team since 1942 to successfully rally all the way back from a 3–0 deficit in games. It was also Toronto and Detroit in the Stanley Cup Final that year, as the Red Wings opened up with three straight wins before the Maple Leafs rattled off four in a row.

Stuart Skinner and Zach Hyman after the Oilers’ win on Friday night.

I’ve written about the 1942 series before, in 2017 and in 2022. You can check those out if you’d like, as I’ll try to keep this recap brief. The Leafs famously shook up their lineup after three straight losses, benching veterans Gord Drillon and Bucko McDonald. Younger and faster Don Metz and Hank Goldup were inserted into the lineup, and Gaye Stewart was summoned from the farm team in Pittsburgh. That, apparently, gave the Leafs the spark they needed … although there’s also the fact that Toronto had been a much better team than Detroit throughout the regular season, and probably should have beaten the Red Wings anyway!

There’s long been another story told about what sparked the Leafs famous 1942 comeback. It’s the type of “hockey legend” I rarely believe without proof. And, at first, the proof seems a little shaky.

As best I could find, Hap Day first tells the story in a feature by Toronto Star sportswriter Red Burnett for The Star Weekly on March 12, 1955. (Though perhaps it appears earlier in some other source, such as a Maple Leafs program?) “Hockey has been wonderful to me down through the years,” Day told Burnett. “I have two Stanley Cups that stand out in the six triumphs I shared in, one as a player and five as a coach.”

The Toronto Star from April 18, 1942 … the day of Game Seven.

The standout memory from his playing days came in 1932, when Day captained the team to its first Stanley Cup championship under the Leafs name. “But the incident which lives the most vividly in my memory is a letter from a 14-year-old girl.”

Day explains that he received the letter just before Game Four of the Final in 1942. “I was at my wit’s end trying to figure out what angle I would take with the team that night when along came this letter. The little girl wrote that she still had faith in us and was praying for our success.

“It was a wonderful letter and I read it to the boys before that all-important game. I didn’t have to say another word. Dave Schriner, one of our veterans, got to this feet and said: ‘Coach, you don’t have to worry about this one. We’ll win it for that little girl.’ After the first shift on the ice I knew I had a hockey team. Before the game was over I sensed that Cup history would be made, that we were going to win four straight for the biggest comeback in the game’s history.”

Hap Day seems to have first told the story of the letter in this article.

Day told the story again to Allan Abel of The Globe and Mail on May 16, 1983. Twenty-eight years later, the girl was now 15 years old but the rest of the story is essentially the same.

Over the years, it seems, the girl — Doris Klein — has been reported as 11, 14 and 15 years old. It’s been said she was a Toronto girl living in Detroit and taking an awful ribbing from her new friends. Or, she was a girl from Toronto who was either embarrassed by, or feeling sorry for, the team.

With all the different variations, it’s easy enough to wonder if the story was true at all. However, an account from Leafs goalie Turk Broda to sportswriter Jim Hunt for The Star Weekly on March 31, 1962, would seem to confirm that it was.

“I can … still remember Hap reading us a letter from a 15-year-old girl before the fourth game,” said Broda while reminiscing about the 1942 comeback. “The girl was pleading with us to win and it was pretty dramatic. But I think Hap added a little and then as the final dramatic touch showed us the letter which he claimed was stained by her tears.”

Turk Broda gave his take on the letter story here.

The tear-stains have become part of the legend too. But, as Roy MacGregor wrote in The National Post on April 26, 1999, “[s]ome others – and count me among these skeptics – believe the letter was written by a middle-aged NHL coach…. [Hap Day] scribbled it on hotel stationery, folded it, stuck it in an envelope, and wrinkled it a bit for authenticity – then he headed off to Game Four.”

So, is the story true at all? Or did Day write the letter himself?

I asked friend and colleague Jonathon Jackson — who has written a dissertation about Hap Day he’s hoping to publish as a biography — what he knew about the story. Not surprisingly, Jonathon had read all the variations which had caused him to question it too. But he had come across one account from the time that seems to indicate the basic story is true. In The Toronto Star on April 15, 1942, among the recap of the Leafs’ 9–3 trouncing of Detroit in Game Five the night before, there is a series of photographs and this caption:

That pretty girl on the right is Doris Klein, Toronto maiden whose ‘pep’ note to the Leafs in Detroit drew her their admiration and honor seats at the game with her father as the team’s very special guest.

This is the young woman identified in the Star as letter-writer Doris Klein.

So, it seems, there was a girl, and she did write a letter.

Or else Hap Day went to a lot of trouble to convince his team she had!